Die erste Sitzung des Modells

Jean-Honore Fragonard painted this small studio scene around 1769, near the height of a career built on charm, speed and a certain knowing playfulness. A young woman is being arranged for her first pose while the painter, brush in hand, leans in to direct her, and an older woman helps loosen her dress. It is the art world of the French court seen from the wings, half studio, half boudoir, exactly the kind of lightly risque subject that pleased private collectors before the Revolution swept that whole leisured society away. Fragonard worked fast and loose here, laying in the figures with quick, sketchy strokes that keep the whole thing feeling improvised. The empty canvas on the easel waits, still blank, for the sitting about to begin.